Rare Medallion

Sale: CNG 79, Lot: 606. Estimate $5000.  Closing Date: Wednesday, 17 September 2008.  Sold For $8300. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

LYDIA, Sardis. Valerian I. AD 253-260. Æ Medallion - 46mm (42.11 g, 6h). Domitius Rufus asiarch and son of the second asiarch. Radiate, draped, and cuirassed bust right / Demeter, with billowing veil and holding torch in each hand, standing in biga drawn right by winged serpents. LS -; SNG München -; BMC 206. Good VF, green patina. Very rare.

Among the most ancient of the deities in the Olympian pantheon and with connections to a pre-Hellenic mother earth goddess, Demeter remained connected with fertility in Classical myth as the goddess of grain and crops. According to the Homeric Hymn addressed to her, Demeter, in her day and night search for her abducted daughter Persephone, eventually arrived at Eleusis. In return for the hospitality she received from its king, Celeus, Demeter instructed his son, Triptolemus, in the ways of agriculture. Having received this knowledge, he taught it to the rest of Greece, traveling from place to place in a chariot drawn by flying serpents, chthonic deities connected to Demeter’s ancient past.